{"id":8850,"date":"2021-11-09T15:03:53","date_gmt":"2021-11-09T15:03:53","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/TheNextWeb=1372615"},"modified":"2021-11-09T15:03:53","modified_gmt":"2021-11-09T15:03:53","slug":"paging-the-plagiarism-police-ai-is-getting-better-at-writing-students-essays","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.londonchiropracter.com\/?p=8850","title":{"rendered":"Paging the plagiarism police \u2014 AI is getting better at writing students\u2019 essays"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

The dramatic rise of online learning during the COVID-19 pandemic has spotlit concerns about the role of technology in exam surveillance<\/a> \u2014 and also in student cheating<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Some universities have reported more cheating<\/a> during the pandemic, and such concerns are unfolding in a climate where technologies that allow for the automation of writing<\/a> continue to improve.<\/p>\n

Over the past two years, the ability of artificial intelligence<\/a> to generate writing has leaped forward significantly<\/a>, particularly with the development of what\u2019s known as the language generator GPT-3. With this, companies such as Google<\/a>, Microsoft, and NVIDIA<\/a> can now produce \u201chuman-like\u201d text<\/a>.<\/p>\n

AI-generated writing has raised the stakes of how universities and schools will gauge what constitutes academic misconduct, such as plagiarism<\/a>. As scholars with an interest in academic integrity<\/a> and the intersections of work, society, and educators\u2019 labor, we believe that educators and parents should be, at the very least, paying close attention to these significant developments<\/a>.<\/p>\n

AI & academic writing<\/h2>\n

The use of technology in academic writing is already widespread. For example, many universities already use text-based plagiarism detectors like Turnitin<\/a>, while students might use Grammarly<\/a>, a cloud-based writing assistant. Examples of writing support include automatic text generation, extraction, prediction, mining, form-filling, paraphrasing<\/a>, translation, and transcription.<\/p>\n

Advancements in AI technology have led to new tools, products and services being offered to writers<\/a> to improve content and efficiency<\/a>. As these improve, soon entire articles<\/a> or essays might be<\/a> generated and written entirely by artificial intelligence<\/a>. In schools, the implications of such developments will undoubtedly shape the future of learning, writing, and teaching. Misconduct concerns are already widespread<\/p>\n

Research has revealed that concerns over academic misconduct are already widespread across institutions of higher education in Canada<\/a> and internationally.<\/p>\n

In Canada, there is little data regarding the rates of misconduct. Research published in 2006 based on data from mostly undergraduate students at 11 higher education institutions<\/a> found 53 percent reported having engaged in one or more instances of serious cheating on written work, which was defined as copying material without footnoting, copying material almost word for word, submitting work done by someone else, fabricating or falsifying a bibliography, submitting a paper they either bought or got from someone else for free.<\/p>\n

Academic misconduct is in all likelihood under-reported across Canadian higher education institutions<\/a>.<\/p>\n

There are different types of violations of academic integrity, including plagiarism<\/a>, contract cheating<\/a> (where students hire other people to write their papers), and exam cheating, among others<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Unfortunately, with technology, students can use their ingenuity and entrepreneurialism to cheat. These concerns are also applicable to faculty members, academics, and writers in other fields, bringing new concerns surrounding academic integrity and AI such as:<\/p>\n